


The Fight Was Fixed

by IAmSorry__sendmeaprompt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e22 Lucifer Rising, Episode: s04e22 Lucifer Rising - Voicemail Scene, Fix-It, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Sam Winchester, Men Crying, Post-Episode: s04e22 Lucifer Rising, Protective Dean Winchester, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sam doesn't think he deserves food for a bit, Suicidal Thoughts, Voicemail, but it gets fixed, voicemail fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmSorry__sendmeaprompt/pseuds/IAmSorry__sendmeaprompt
Summary: After that voicemail was tampered with, Sam thinks Dean is going to kill him.This is pure, self-indulgent angst followed by fluffy happiness.In short, Sorry fixed the thing, because the show never bothered to.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 133
Collections: Sam Winchester WHUMP





	The Fight Was Fixed

**Author's Note:**

> If I missed a tag please let me know! I have three unfinished stories I should be working on, plus a crap ton of assignments, so obviously I wrote this instead of doing any of that. It's about eleven years too late, sorry about that.

It’s remarkably quiet outside for an apocalypse, although Sam supposes he doesn’t really know what an apocalypse like this one should feel like. He’s never unleashed Lucifer upon the unsuspecting world before. No immediate big events have happened, though, so that’s good. Except for how Sam’s still alive, which was surprising.

He’d drained an innocent nurse of her blood and then, fully powered up, had gone and murdered Lilith, breaking the final seal. It had taken all of his power, all the demon blood he’d consumed, to kill her, and he could feel the second the last of it left his body. Well, at least there wouldn’t be another long, slow detox. 

He’d known the second her blood started doing that weird spiral-ly thing that something was the matter, and so his knife had found its way into Ruby, too.

Then Dean had been there, dragging him out and away, and God, he’d never expected to see Dean again. Sam had been shoved into the front seat of the Impala and Dean had driven like a bat out of hell as thunder rumbled and the sky split around them.

Dean drove for hours, lips tightly pursed and brow furrowed, exuding anger. Sam kept expecting him to pull off to a nice quiet side of the road and carry through on the promises he’d made in that voicemail Sam had picked up right before he’d kickstarted the apocalypse.

_ Bloodsucking freak _ , his mind helpfully reminded him. _ You’ve become something we’d hunt.  _ Sighing, Sam rested his head against the window and waited for Dean to decide he just couldn’t wait any longer to kill Sam.

Sam could understand where Dean was coming from, really. He was a monster. He’d trusted a demon, let himself get ensnared in her traps, and he’d drank her blood. He could kill people with his mind, for Christ’s sake. Or, well, he used to be able to. When he was all juiced up. And then there was the whole freeing the devil and starting a massive war between Heaven and Hell.

A tight knot of guilt and pain and regret seethed in his stomach, and he gritted his teeth as bile rose in his throat. He’d turned into a vampire. He was a freak, a monster. Objectively, he knew he deserved to die, and that Dean deserved to kill him for all the trouble he’d caused his older brother. Still, he didn’t want to just sit and wait for it to happen. He wished Dean would get it over with.

Sam turned to look at Dean, whose face was lit only by the headlights of passing cars as they soldiered on into the night. How had the chasm between them grown so wide? Every time Sam saw his brother, he couldn’t help but hear the man’s venomous words from that voicemail, spit into the phone laden with such hate it was a wonder Sam didn’t drop dead when he’d first heard them.

He’d wanted to.

Instead, he’d felt his heart shatter into a million tiny shards, and then he’d let Ruby manipulate him even further.

“Here,” Dean grunted, and the car was slowing down. They were pulling into a gas station. “Gonna fill her up,” Dean said. “Get me some M&Ms.”

Sam got him some M&Ms, and a coke. He didn’t get anything for himself; he’d probably be dead before it got halfway digested, anyway. He also didn’t think he could’ve eaten anything, what with the sadness and fear and shame that was threatening to overwhelm him.

He made it back to the Impala and handed over Dean’s food, waiting for his brother to order him into the stand of trees behind the gas station. Or maybe just to his knees, here, in the open parking lot. The place was deserted enough, and there were no cameras that Sam could see. A bullet through his brain would be quick, and then Dean could drive on without being shackled to Sam and his mistakes.

Instead, Dean motioned for him to get back into the seat. A stay of execution, then.

Maybe he wanted to take his time, repay Sam for every little bit of agony Sam had ever put him through. That would make sense. Dean loved revenge, was driven by it. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough for him to put a bullet through Sam’s head or heart like he would a regular monster. Maybe when they got to wherever they were going, Sam was going to find himself strapped down and carved away until he succumbed to death.

That was okay. He deserved it. It was just a precursor to what he’d be getting in Hell for the rest of eternity, anyway. If it would help Dean feel better, he’d let it happen.

***

Hours later, they stopped at a motel. Sam carried his duffel in, certain he wasn’t going to need it. He sat on his bed and waited, but Dean just announced that he wanted the first shower, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Sam waited, and waited, and at some point he fell asleep. 

He jolted awake when he heard Dean walk up to his bed, and struggled not to tense up. Maybe Dean wanted to kill him as he slept. Dean might still have a soft spot for his little brother Sammy, and while Sam wasn’t that anymore, he still looked like him. It would almost certainly be easier on Dean if he couldn’t see fear and betrayal in Sam’s eyes. 

Sam turned his face slightly into the pillow, and waited for the gunshot to ring out, or the knife blade to puncture his skin. He felt a soft touch on his shoulder, and let an involuntary whimper escape, but no pain came.

Dean pulled a blanket over him and patted his shoulder again before returning to his own bed and snoring louder than Sam had ever heard him.

***

The next morning, Sam was awake early. Much before Dean was. He went out and picked up a couple of sausage biscuits for Dean, and coffee for them both. He didn’t eat anything. Why should he? He didn’t deserve to be alive, let alone have things like food. He justified the coffee by reasoning that it would help him stay awake, He could do some research and hope he found something before it happened.

Dean was awake and sitting up when he got back to the motel room. “Where did you go?” he asked, sharply.

“Got you breakfast,” and Sam brandished the breakfast in the grease-stained paper bag.

Dean grunts and motions for him to toss it over, and he does. He boots up his computer and starts looking into everything he thinks could possibly fix this as Dean leans back against the pillows and munches on his biscuit.

Half an hour later, Sam is still researching. Dean is cleaning all of their guns, which is putting Sam on edge and making it very hard for him to concentrate. He keeps expecting a shot to ring out, to feel cold tendrils of pain burning through him.

“So,” Dean says, his voice forced casual. “The apocalypse.”

“I’m sorry.” It seems so inadequate. It _ is _ inadequate.

“You’re sorry. Lucifer is rising, people are gonna start dying, and all you can say is that you’re sorry?” Dean’s angry now, and Sam is awfully, selfishly glad. If he can just provoke Dean into getting it over with, he won’t be waiting on these sickening tenterhooks anymore.

“What else do you want me to say, huh? I’m looking into how to fix it.” 

When Dean speaks next, his voice is quieter. Almost a deadly calm. It’s coming, Sam can feel it. “Did you get my voicemail?” Dean asks, and Sam can’t hold back a wince as he hears the harsh, cutting words in his mind again. _ You bloodsucking freak,  _ he hears,  _ I’m done trying to save you. You’re a monster. _

“Yeah,” he says, then clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I got it.”

“So you already know. I don’t hafta, y’know, say anything more?” Dean’s almost pleading with him here, and Sam remembers all the times he’s heard this voice from Dean before. It’s usually when he’s trying to avoid a chick-flick moment.

This couldn’t be further from that.

“Yeah, Dean. I know. You do what you have to do. I won’t stop you.” And Sam turns back to the computer, a clear sign that he’s done talking.

They sit in silence for an hour or so, then Dean announces that he’s going to go in search of a newspaper. He tosses a couple of his knives to Sam, “Take care of these for me, will ya?” as he heads out the door.

Great. Does Dean want him to actually take care of the knives, or off himself with them? Sam methodically cleans the knives as he ponders. Dean had sounded like he hated Sam over the phone, really truly hated him. Chances were, Dean would want to do it himself. Dean would want to see the life draining out of him.

Christ, Sam is getting tired of waiting for it to happen. He’s been living in a constant state of high alert, even as the guilt and pain eats away at him from the inside, plus he can’t remember the last time he consumed anything of real nutritional value. He wishes Dean would just get it over with.

When Dean gets back to the hotel, Sam engages him in a fight, trying to provoke him into getting angry and lashing out, into finally ending Sam’s miserable existence. He gets that Dean is probably enjoying drawing this out, watching Sam suffer, but he hates it.

The fight doesn’t go the way he wanted it to. Dean’s getting up in his face, screaming about trust and decency and goddamnit Sam why are you like this, and Sam is screaming right back, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, it’s probably just a jumbled mess of words, and then the ring on Dean’s finger is splitting his lip open as Dean backhands him across the face.

Sam, eternally grateful that it’s finally happening, sinks to his knees and braces for the blows he knows are about to rain down. Dean is still looking at the droplet of Sam’s blood adorning his ring with a blank expression of shock on his face.

Maybe he forgot that Sam, monstrous though he is, is still partially human, and bleeds as easily as one. Sam closes his eyes and waits for inevitable pain.

What he gets instead is a mumbled rush of words he doesn’t understand a bit of, and as he’s opening his eyes to see if he’s done something else wrong, he sees the tail end of Dean’s jacket whipping out of the door.

Maybe he’s gone to find something he wants to use on Sam. Sam, left alone in the darkened room with his anguish, his bruised cheekbone and freely flowing blood coating his chin, sits back against the wall and cries. He lets out great, heaving sobs, crying for all the mistakes he’s made, crying for his big brother and what he’s forcing Dean to do to him. If Sam had never drunk demon blood, Dean wouldn’t have to hate him, wouldn’t have to kill him. 

The salt in his tears stings the cut across his lower lip, and he almost welcomes the bright spark of pain that cuts through the mire of muddled thoughts and half-formed snippets of hatred circling through his mind.

He’s cried himself out and is sitting slumped against the wall, still dripping blood onto the shaggy, sandpaper-rough carpet, when Dean comes back. Dean’s not drunk, which is surprising. He’s also not carrying any more noticeable weapons.

Sam looks up at his brother as he crosses the room, turning on the lamp between their beds. “C’mon, Sam,” Dean says, sitting down heavily, “time for bed. Get off the floor.” 

Dean’s got his head sunk deep into his hands, and he’s obviously not on his way to kill Sam like he promised he would, like Sam’s been on edge waiting on for days now, and Sam just can’t take it anymore. 

He doesn’t get up. He crawls across the floor until he’s on the ground in front of Dean. He relishes every scrape of the carpet against his knees and palms, as well as the humiliating position. It’s no more than he deserves, and he knows that, and he hates it, but a part of him is grateful for the intensity with which he seems to be feeling it. It’s a reminder that, right now at least, his broken heart is still pumping.

He looks up and Dean is staring at him, eyes wide and confused. “Please,” Sam begs, trying not to hear how broken his voice sounds. “Please, Dean, do it now.” He’s begging, and he’s crying again, and he can feel the cut on his lip reopening with every word he says.

Dean doesn’t say anything. Dean looks like he’s in shock. 

“Please,” Sam begs again, just in case Dean wants to watch him grovel, see Sam thoroughly debase himself before he gets to the fun part. “Dean, you said you would, and I tried to be patient, and I’m sorry but I just  _ can’t _ anymore, please do it now.” He bows his head and waits.

Dean’s fingers come into his field of view, latching onto his chin. Somehow, Sam never considered this. He always thought it would be guns or knives, but what’s going to happen? Is Dean going to strangle him, make him gasp hopelessly for breath? Snap his neck with a quick twist of his wrist?

The fingers lift his chin, gently, and he’s forced to meet Dean’s eyes. There’s tears shimmering in them. This is probably hard for Dean to do, after he spent so many years taking care of Sam, and Sam feels another wave of guilt crash over him.

Then Dean’s talking. “What is it, Sammy? What are you asking me to do?”

Sammy. Dean hasn’t called him that in so long. Sam hates the cruelty of the action, letting him hear that beloved nickname even as Dean prepares to take his life away, but he embraces it nonetheless. He deserves every bit of pain Dean can inflict.

“I want you to do what you said you were going to do. In your voicemail.” Is Dean really going to make him spell it out? Maybe. Sam isn’t sure he can bring himself to say it.

“Hey, whoa. You’re not in the right state of mind for it right now. And I know I said I owed you a serious beatdown, but I think you’ve beat yourself up enough.” Dean’s concerned, now, callused fingers wiping away the tears from Sam’s eyes.

“No, not that, you said- you said I was a monster. You were gonna kill me.” As soon as the words are out of Sam’s mouth, everything goes still.

“I said what?” 

Is Dean really going to make him do this? Sam closes his eyes, accepts his punishment, begins his penance. “You said I was a bloodsucking freak and you were done trying to save me. You gotta kill me now, Dean, please, don’t make me wait.”

Sam doesn’t quite comprehend the blur of movement that happens next, but suddenly, Dean is on the floor next to him, holding Sam half onto his lap and rubbing his back softly, and Sam is crying again. Dean’s holding him closely, and he feels safe for the first time in months, and he wishes he didn't have to lose this. “Dean?”

“Oh, Sammy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t say that, I promise that’s not what I said. I’m not gonna kill you, baby boy, I’m so sorry, I’ve been hurting you all this time, haven’t I?” Dean’s voice is trembling and he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears, but that’s not what Sam is registering right now.

“You’re not gonna kill me?” He sounds pathetically small and weak.

“No, God, no,” Dean presses a gentle kiss to the top of Sam’s head as he readjusts the way they’re sitting so that Sam is cradled between Dean’s knees, leaning back against Dean’s chest as Dean’s back is resting against the bed. “I’m not, Sammy, I swear. Damn angels must have tampered with the voicemail, ‘cause that’s not what I said.”

“What did you say?”

“I said we were still brothers, and we’d get through this no matter what, and that I was sorry. I’m so sorry, Sammy, for everything.”

They sit in silence for a while, each brother clinging to the other like a lifeline, before Dean helps Sam up and wordlessly cleans the blood and tear tracks off of his face, then deposits him safely in bed. He smooths Sam’s hair back as Sam blinks up at him. “Get some sleep, little brother. We can figure it all out in the morning. You’re safe.”

As he drifts off to sleep, with the sound of Dean humming to himself in the background, Sam lets his guard down. He knows his big brother will keep him safe, and tomorrow, together, they can face this new threat.

  
  
  



End file.
